Maya and Haudenosaunee Ancestral Knowledge Exchange
by Sabina Sosof Ajcot

Presenting my Mother’s Work

As the daughter of a Maya woman, I feel incredibly fortunate to have been raised by a strong and courageous mother. She raised the four of us on her own after being widowed when my siblings were very young. Now 75 years old, she has spent her entire life working in kitchens and over the years became an expert cook, mastering both traditional Guatemalan dishes and recipes she learned during her time in the United States, including delicious desserts.

She always says “this food is finger-licking good,” and it’s true! People are always amazed by the flavor she brings to every meal.

Grandmother and Her Recipes of Resistance

Today, my mother is not only a mother but also a grandmother and great-grandmother. It fills me with pride to see that beyond sharing stories of survival, we are also preserving something deeply sacred: our traditional recipes made from corn, a living seed that has nourished the peoples of the Americas for generations.

Corn is more than food. It is identity, spirituality, and memory. Our elders have told us how, during the armed conflict, seeds were burned along with the land, the crops, the homes… and the lives of many in our indigenous communities.

With permission and respect from Haudenosaunee Community Members, we offered a cooking workshop where we shared the ancestral process of nixtamalization, as well as recipes for tortillas, tamalitos, and chuchitos. This process of cooking corn with lime is essential: it unlocks the full nutritional value of corn, allowing the body to absorb its nutrients. Without it, the sacred power of corn is diminished.

Sharing this knowledge with our Seneca relatives was deeply meaningful. We cooked, learned, and felt the weight and strength of our shared histories.

My mother, a wise 75 year old woman and my brother a 40 year old man reflected that we, as Indigenous peoples, are not alone in our resistance. The stories repeat themselves: land dispossession, discrimination, loss of identity, language, traditional dress… and now, the erosion of our traditional foods.

Our experience at The White Corn Project was filled with empathy. Both communities carry similar wounds, but also a dignity that has not been erased. As my mother said with emotion:

“The Indigenous Peoples of the North also eat and honor corn. Without corn, we cannot live.”

As a daughter, I am grateful for life. Every day, I learn from my mother and also from the school without walls: our Indigenous communities. In these spaces, we learn about history, colonization, and ancestral culture not from books, but from lived experience.

I realize that if we children, grandchildren, and younger generations don’t actively engage in spaces that connect us to our culture, that remind us of who we are and where we come from, we risk forgetting our identity.

That’s why it’s urgent to weave connections and unite our efforts to keep our culture alive. A culture often called “alternative” today, but one that truly offers a more humane and sustainable way of life.

We must remember: we already have what we need to live traditional medicine. We have our native foods, eco-friendly building techniques, community values, and a deep respect for life. What’s now being labeled as permaculture, agroecology, or organic living has been part of our ancestral practices all along. And now more than ever, we must remember to practice, and honor that legacy.

During the exchange with Haudenosaunee community members, it became clear: our stories, though geographically distant, share common pain. Our Indigenous territories were invaded, our seeds were burned, our homes destroyed, our crops uprooted, and our families killed or disappeared.

In Guatemala’s armed conflict, many Indigenous women were raped, lands were stolen, Christian and non-Christian leaders were murdered, and babies were ripped from their mothers’ wombs even in sacred and beautiful places like the areas around majestic Lake Atitlán.

We believe it is vital to continue passing down these stories and wisdom to present and future generations. Our legacy and their quality of life depend on it.

As grandparents, parents, and keepers of ancestral memory, it is our responsibility to teach who we are, where we come from, and where we are going. Intergenerational Ancestral Skills Camp

Only then can our youth grow with a strong identity and a critical lens, not through the fog of consumerism or distractions that threaten their physical, mental, and spiritual health.

Preserving our communities, languages, traditional clothing, and native foods is not only an act of resistance it is an act of love.

In Guatemala, many Indigenous youth have been taught to be ashamed of their identity, to believe they are ignorant, that they have no worth beyond serving others, and that they can’t aspire to a dignified life.

But the truth is different. Indigenous families grow the healthiest food, use traditional medicine, preserve food with ancestral techniques, build with natural materials, and live in harmony with nature.

For us, the Maya people, quality of life is not measured in luxury, titles, or industry but in balance with Mother Earth. We use what nature gives us, responsibly and sustainably. Today’s science is only beginning to recognize what we have always known.

Our stories are similar because our struggles are similar. But so are our hopes, our resistance, and our wisdom. And for that reason, we will continue to tell our stories. Because in remembering, we resist. And in sharing, we flourish.

To speak of globalization is to recognize how it impacts our economies, societies, and especially our Indigenous cultures. Today, the challenges we face as humanity are vast: ecological crises, loss of identity, deteriorating health, and spiritual disconnection. These burdens weigh heaviest on Indigenous peoples, whose ways of life are rooted in harmony with the Earth.

We know we cannot change the world overnight. But we can start with small daily acts that plant seeds of transformation: preserving our traditional recipes, honoring ancestral cooking techniques, rejecting processed foods, and passing this knowledge from mothers to children, from grandparents to grandchildren.

Food is not just physical nourishment it feeds the spirit. Preparing our meals with intention, asking for permission and giving thanks to the Creator for each seed and ingredient, connects us to the heart of the Earth and our ancestors.

To the colonizers, gold was shiny metal. To our peoples, gold has always been corn. Yellow corn is sacred because it gives life. It is food, medicine, and a symbol of resilience. Without it, we lose more than nutrition we lose part of our collective soul.

Knowing how to eat corn is more than satisfying hunger. It’s understanding what we consume, why we consume it, and how we prepare it. Nixtamalization, for example, is not just a cooking technique it is ancestral knowledge. Knowing the origin of corn, the lime from m ountain stone that adds calcium to our bodies, honors the science and wisdom of our ancestors.